You know you are in the silly season when the charges against sensible tax reform become more and more outrageous. The silliest and most outrageous is based on this causal reasoning: The Republican tax measure repeals the Obamacare mandate, requiring people to purchase health insurance; without the mandate, fewer people will insure; and without insurance, more people will die.

Lawrence Summers and Jonathan Gruber make this claim in a Washington Post editorial. Summers was Secretary of Treasury under Bill Clinton. He has recently been criticized by other economists for ignoring his own past writings in attacking tax reform. Gruber is the economist best known for designing Obamacare.